The Author

Part-time Starship Captain and fledgling feminist...
Writing about all sorts of things, often through the lens of Star Trek:
* Marriage and Parenting
* Home education,
* Health and mental health,
* ADHD
* Recovery from trauma and misdiagnosis
* Moving from vegetarian through paleo and back (to veganism) in one easy mid-life-crisis.
* Moving from city life to very rural Cornwall in one not-so-easy mid-life-crisis.
* Being addicted to: books, planners, pens, stationery, hats, scarves, shoes, twitter and facebook groups. :D
* Grief and loss (recurrent miscarriage and secondary infertility).
* Considering adoption from care.
* Slowly exiting fundamentalist evangelical Christianity/ Messianic Judaism.
* Working towards a sane and healthy faith.
* Exploring Judaism
* Exploring progressive, liberal Anglicanism and Celtic Christianity.
* Still a peculiar mixture of Jewish and Christian, now with a healthy dose of scepticism.
A p.s.: Please don't confuse me with the lovely 'Christian Janeway', who is a buddy of mine, but she isn't, in fact, me.
We have lots in common, but Christian Janeway is the savvy young American, I am the middle-aged, awkward British version from a parallel universe! :D

Many apologies for neglecting this blog so completely for so many months!
My circumstances have changed somewhat, but the real reason I haven’t been posting is that life just got too full and overwhelming and, after I had missed a few weeks of Torah portions/ lectionary, I soon realised it would be impossible to catch up.

Since Easter I have been listening to past years’ Spring Harvest cds from about 1989-1995. Since Spring Harvest is in the Spring, there are lots of Easter-themed songs.It has been lovely and encouraging.

I have never actually made it to Spring Harvest or any other church holiday type of camp (not since childhood in the 70s anyway). I know we are so blessed in the West to have so many resources at our fingertips. But I do feel I have missed out, and I have been thinking a lot recently about being isolated and cut off from the rest of the church.

Apart from a brief ‘flirtation’ with New Frontiers in the 90s and visits to a big Elim in the next town, I haven’t been part of an active, thriving church since the 80s. It is as if, for some reason, God has me perpetually in the wilderness. I am currently in a very small congregation, and not of my preferred denomination.

I am at a bit of a cross-roads. I want to preach, I feel as though I may have that gifting and calling. At this tiny congregation I actually have the chance to walk into that calling, because they’re desperate for speakers, whereas elsewhere I seem to be fighting an uphill battle that may not lead to anything.

But in the tiny church, there are more seekers than believers and only elderly lay leaders while they wait for an officer. There are no young people or families, other than a couple who had a child very late in life. So we have one child. I feel terribly sorry for her. I feel for these people, but will I be fed there? I don’t think anybody can “feed the sheep” if they’re not getting fed themselves. The cup can only run over if it’s being filled.

I never wanted to be a pioneer or a maverick. I’d much rather slip in unnoticed at the back of a big church. But those brief flirtations with New Frontiers and Elim proved ultimately to be unfulfilling. Perhaps I’m not meant to hide my light under a bushel?

I am due to preach for the first time ever next Sunday, 30th April 2017. I was given carte blanche, so I’m planning to speak on the goodness and faithfulness of God.

I leave you with a band I have just discovered, but which has been going since the 70s! Glad! The Accapella Project.

I didn’t have the opportunity to visit a liturgical church this week (and indeed have not been able to for a long time, and who knows what the new year will bring? It does not seem to be a likely option for me, since I need to take my mum wherever she decides suits her).

I will continue to read the set readings and post my notes. Today, though, I drew a blank. My brain just did not seem to be able to connect the passages or make any sense of them, so I offer this sermon link which explains it all as illustrating “how to live the holy life”:

The fact that the 4th Sunday of Advent is supposed to represent love (where the first 3 weeks represented hope, peace and joy) emphasises for me the fact that that Kingdom life is primarily to be characterised by Love above all things.

Last Sunday was the third Sunday in Advent, and is known as ‘Gaudete Sunday’, that is Rejoicing Sunday. The readings all refer to the coming of the Lord, and the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven – a kingdom where the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear and the dead are raised up.

The following is a lovely version (my favourite!) of ‘Gaudete’ sung by The Mediaeval Baebes.

Again, this hope of the Kingdom is not only referring to the first Advent of Christ coming as a baby and doing miracles as a man, but the hope of a future coming – the second Advent – as the King, when all of these hopes will be fully realised.

I did not realise that Advent is considered a period of ‘penance’ in the Roman Catholic church. I don’t suppose that really applies in Anglican churches, but ‘repentance’ featured in the readings for the 2nd Sunday in Advent. (Repentance seems to me to be a slightly preferable word, since the word ‘penance’ gives the impression that one can atone for one’s sins oneself, whereas ‘repentance’ is rather turning around and going in a new direction).

The passage in James (read the whole chapter if you can) gives us a clue how we can repent and pursue the Kingdom while we wait for its ultimate fulfillment :

Very belatedly now, I’m looking at the lectionary readings for the second Sunday in Advent.

Often it is quite a challenge to perceive a connection between the readings. In this instance, there is the repeated refrain of Christ as ‘the root of Jesse’, the king of righteousness whom the gentiles (nations) will seek. But how does the passage in Matthew relate to Advent?

I picked up volume 2 of the new Northumbria Community’s Celtic Prayer: Farther Up and Father In, and glanced through its readings for Advent.

It says “This is the path that John marked, whose voice called in the desert, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord’.”

That is it precisely. As we prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord (which Christmas is supposed to represent), we need above all to repent; that is, to ‘make teshuvah’, to turn away from those things in our lives which distract us, produce negativity and unhappiness in ourselves and others, and embrace the Kingdom life in which love rules, and righteous justice for the poor, the weak, the vulnerable is brought to bear.

Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doth wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory.

Like this:

“Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;And patience, experience; and experience, hope:And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”

Find this passage at Bible Gateway (you can choose other versions if you prefer)

As I may have mentioned, we recently moved house and my mother has moved in with us. Since I am not established in a particular church, we are starting to find a new church that would suit mum. So far we have tried Methodist and the Charismatic Pentecostal church I used to go to. These notes are from the passage that was preached on this last Sunday. I won’t try and turn it into any kind of coherent study, I’ll just post the notes I took and leave them for you to make of them what you will.

The topic of the sermon was hope and character.

“Jesus intercedes hope into our lives.”

Faith needs to be exercised (like a muscle – the more you exercise it, the bigger it grows).

Nothing is impossible with God.

We need to take our eyes off our reality and our problems (and fix our eyes upon Jesus).

If we have the faith the size of a mustard seed, we can move mountains.

Prayer will turn our problems into miracles, our ‘ashes’ into beauty.

Suffering produces perseverance which produces character.

Position yourself in a place of hope

Pursue character

Consider the story of Joseph. In between his dream and its coming into fruition was suffering which produced character. It was the same with Moses and with David.

The enemy won’t attack you at the place of the dream, but at the place of character. That is our foundation.

The foundation of contending for Hope and Character:

Live Righteously

Know the Word, read, study, obey

Pray, spend time, be in the Presence

Surrender to His Will

Worship, praise

Don’t wait for the breakthrough to pray, read, worship and live rightly. The breakthrough depends upon prayer, Word, worship and holiness. This is what ushers in the Kingdom of Heaven.

The portion Toledot means ‘Generations’, after the first words of the portion, “And these are the generations of Isaac, Abraham’s son.” Toledot includes the following stories:

Birth of Esau and Jacob

Esau sells his birthright

Covenant with Isaac confirmed

Sojourn in Gerar

Dispute about wells

Covenant between Isaac and Abimelech

Esau’s wives

Jacob steals Esau’s blessing

Esau’s disappointment

Jacob flees to Padan-Aram

Birth of Esau and Jacob

Right at the beginning of the passage, we are told that the twins Esau and Jacob struggled with each other within Rebekah’s womb, and this sets the scene for their relationship. Rebekah asks, “Why?” and the LORD tells her, “Two nations are in thy womb… and the elder shall serve the younger.”

Esau sells his birthright

The next section tells the story of Esau selling his birthright for ‘pottage’ or lentil stew. But really, it seems rather more that it is the story of Jacob taking advantage of his brother in his hour of need, but we are told “Thus Esau despised his birthright” so in other words, it is less important that Jacob obtained the birthright in a dishonest way than the fact that Esau did not value it as he should have done.

Covenant with Isaac confirmed

Next there is another famine in the land, and the LORD tells Isaac not to go back down into Egypt, so he goes to Abimelech of the Philistines to live in Gerar. He is told “Sojourn in this land, and I will be with theee, and will bless thee; for unto thee and unto thy seed, I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father.” We are reminded that these promises are not dependent on Isaac’s obedience. “Because that abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

Dispute with Abimelech

We now have another sister/ wife narrative in which Isaac attempts to pass Rebekah off as his sister, but Abimelech sees Isaac behaving in a way that indicated she was his wife, and so Abimelech instructs nobody to touch her. Again it seems that the foreign kings are more moral than the Patriarchs!

Then we are told that the Philistines have filled in all Abraham’s wells, and Abimelech asks Isaac to move on because God has blessed him so much during his time there so he now has great wealth, “Go from us; for thou art much mightier than we.”

Then Abimelech’s servants fight with Isaacs over the ownership of the wells and the water.

Then, at Beersheba, the LORD appears to Isaac and tells him he will bless and multiply him (give him children and descendents).

Looking at the chiastic structure of the portion (see Christine’s Bible study in the links below), this contention over Isaac’s wife, wealth and water are the central axis of the whole passage.

Covenant between Isaac and Abimelech

Abimelech approaches Isaac to make an agreement that they won’t do any harm to each other, apparently seeing how great Isaac has become and fearing him a little. Isaac retorts “Wherefore come ye to me, seeing ye hate me, and have sent me away from you?” (I think he was teasing them a little there!) They answer “We saw certainly that the LORD was with thee.”

Esau’s wives

We then have a short paragraph about Esau marrying foreign girls, “which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah”, and although we are not told why this would be, we can assume it is related to their ‘foreign gods’.

Jacob steals Esau’s blessing

We now have the most incredible story of Rebekah collaborating with Jacob to trick Isaac into giving Esau’s blessing to Jacob instead with an elaborate rouse – sending Esau out to hunt venison for dinner while they cook a kid at home and Jacob pretends to be his hairy brother by covering himself in goat skin! Why does Rebekah do this? Is this a simple case of favouritism or is it another case, like Sarah, of trying to force events to fit the promise? It seems thoroughly immoral, but Jacob receives the blessing whether he deserves it or not.

Esau’s disappointment

Esau is bitterly disappointed, having apparently realised too late what a big mistake he had made already in selling his birthright. He begs his father to bless him too, but evidently Isaac cannot give him the same blessing as the blessing is prophetic, and so Esau receives only what is left. Esau remarks, “Is not he rightly named Jacob (meaning supplanter or deceiver), for he hath supplanted me these two times.”

Jacob flees to Padan-Aram

Of course, Esau hates Jacob for what he has done to him, so Jacob flees for his life, and Rebekah once again collaborates with him, sending him to her relatives back in Padan-Aram, convincing Isaac that it is so that he wouldn’t take a wife from among the ‘daughters of Canaan’ as Esau had done.

Esau’s response is to go to Ishmael’s family to take another wife from his family. It is not clear whether this was a good thing or just as bad as taking wives from Canaan, and we are not told whether or not this pleased Isaac. We can probably assume from silence that it made little difference. Esau will become the father of a nation (the Edomites), but the birthright, the blessing and all the promises go to Jacob.

The Psalm for today was 122, “I was glad when they said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord.”

I was unable to go to church this Sunday because, in addition to my own health issues, I am now looking after my mother who suffers from bipolar disorder.

My mother always becomes anxious, tearful, angry as Sunday rolls around. Having grown up in what was effectively a very abusive religious home, she is deeply conflicted about church. She wants to be there, she yearns for community, but it is tainted by the memory of forced religion.

I, meanwhile, would love to be there but my health more often than not prevents me, and I am constantly angry at the way the church neglects us, rejects us, forgets us.

I saw this poem on a facebook group and decided to share it because the words are so close to my own heart.

How baffling you are, oh Church,
and yet how I love you!
How you have made me suffer,
and yet how much I owe you!
I would like to see you destroyed,
and yet I need your presence.
You have given me so much scandal
and yet you have made me understand what sanctity is.
I have seen nothing in the world
more devoted to obscurity, more compromised, more false,
and yet I have touched nothing
more pure, more generous, more beautiful.
How often I have wanted to shut the doors of my soul in your face,
and how often I have prayed to die in the safety of your arms.
No, I cannot free myself from you,
because I am you, though not completely.
And besides, where would I go?
Would I establish another?
I would not be able to establish it without the same faults,
for they are the same faults I carry in me.
And if I did establish another,
it would be my Church, not the Church of Christ.
And I am old enough to know
that I am no better than anyone else.

The portion begins saying Sarah was 127 years old, “These were the years of the life of Sarah”, and Sarah died.

Abraham mourns for Sarah, and purchases a parcel of land – the field in Machpelah near Mamre in Canaan – for her burial place, and there’s a funny little bit of bartering, and so Sarah is buried in the cave there.

Rebekah Chosen for Isaac

Abraham sends his servant back to his family in the old country to pick a wife for Isaac. When he goes to feed his camels outside the city he prays that God will arrange for the wife He has picked out for Isaac should come and help him with the camels, which He does – a young woman helps him, and it turns out to be Rebekah, a relative of Abraham. Rebekah is the daughter of Bethuel, and Laban is her brother.

Laban and Bethuel

Abraham’s servant asks Laban and Bethuel for Rebekah to be a wife for Isaac, and recounts his story of his prayer that God would lead the wife He had picked out for Isaac to help him with his camels’ water.

Laban and Bethuel agree, but they don’t want Rebekah to go right away, which is perfectly understandable. They invite the servant to stay ten days but he wants to go back the next day. They eventually agree, and shower Rebekah with gifts of silver, jewels, gold and clothes. Rebekah’s mother is mentioned but not named. It’s hard to imagine having to make a decision like this in just one day to let your daughter go and marry a relative they’ve never met, knowing they might never see her again. Her unnamed mother would have mourned for her I think!

Isaac meets Rebekah

There’s a little paragraph describing Rebekah meeting Isaac, which mentions that she puts on a veil right before they actually meet. I don’t know for sure – it seems a little strange – but I suspect that the veil is to signify that she is effectively married from that moment. I’d be interested if anybody can tell me otherwise.

Abraham’s Sons

Abraham takes another wife, Keturah, and has more sons by her, the names of whom are listed at the beginning of chapter 25. It also mentions concubines. The dictionary defines a concubine as “a woman who lives with a man but has lower status than his wife or wives”. So Hagar would have been considered a concubine. This is an ancient polygamous practice which is very peculiar and hard to understand from our modern, Western perspective.

Death of Abraham

Abraham divides his wealth, giving all that he had to Isaac, other than gifts which he gave to his other sons and then sent them away eastward. Then Abraham dies aged 175 and he is ‘gathered to his people’ and buried in the cave in Machpelah where Sarah was buried. Again, from our modern, Western perspective, this treating of children differently with such blatant favouritism is really difficult to understand.

Descendants and Death of Ishmael

The descendants of Ishmael are listed – ‘twelve princes according to their nations’, and then Ishmael dies aged 137. It says he was ‘gathered to his people’ and that he died in the presence of all his brethren. For this bit of information to be included in the Bible, we can presume that all the brothers came together again and that would have included Isaac and the sons of Ketubah and the concubines.

I’m running late, as per usual! So apologies for that. I will try to post regularly but I can’t promise the topics will be on time.

Vayera means ‘and he appeared’, and covers the following stories:

Abraham’s angelic visitors

Abraham intercedes with God regarding Sodom

Lot’s angelic visitors

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

Lot delivered by his wife is destroyed

Lot’s daughters

Abraham and Abimelech

The Birth of Isaac

Hagar and Ishmael sent away

Covenant at Beer Sheba

Sacrifice of Isaac

Abraham’s angelic visitors

Abraham is visited by three ‘men’, which he addresses as ‘My Lord’. The text also says “the LORD appeared unto him’, LORD in capital letters referring to The Name, (YHVH – Jehovah or Yahweh) They are usually understood in Christian thought to be Angelic messengers, and the three in some way representing the Trinity. The angels tell Abraham that Sarah – despite her advanced age – will conceive, and Sarah laughs to herself (it’s ridiculous!) The angel perceives that Sarah laughed inwardly, and asks “Why did Sarah laugh? Is any thing too hard for the LORD?” Sarah denies it, and the angel says “oh yes you did!” (“Nay, but thou didst laugh.”)

Abraham intercedes with God regarding Sodom

The angels talk amongst themselves and decide to tell Abraham of their plans to destroy Sodom, and gives Abraham the opportunity to bargain with them – asking, what if there were 50 righteous men there, you wouldn’t destroy the place if there were 50 righteous, and then (perhaps knowing that there were very few righteous men there, Abraham gradually whittles the number down until it is just ten, and the angels agree that even if there were only ten righteous men there, they would not destroy the city.

Lot’s Angelic Visitors

Now only two of the angelic visitors are mentioned, which is curious. I should imagine there might be some significance there but I don’t know what. It seems that they visit Lot for Abraham’s sake , rather than Lot’s righteousness. The men of Sodom come and threaten the visitors. The KJV uses the very gentle euphemism “that we may know them”, but this of course means that they want sex and presumably they mean rape, and appallingly, Lot offers his two virgin daughters to them instead!

The angels tell Lot to gather up his family so they can get them out of Sodom, as they intend to destroy the place, and they somehow smite the men with temporary blindness so they can escape. Lot’s married daughters’ husbands think it’s all a joke and so Lot leaves only with his wife and his two unmarried daughters (all of whom are left unnamed).

The Descruction of Sodom and Gomorrah

So Sodom and its surrounding cities and villages are all destroyed with ‘brimstone and fire’ and they are told not to look back, but Lot’s wife (unnamed) famously looked back and was turned into a ‘pillar of salt’.

It often used to be suggested, because sex was mentioned as one of the sins of Sodom, that homosexuality was the reason that God destroyed Sodom. But we learn in Ezekiel 16:49 “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.” – did you get that? Pride, greed/ gluttony, laziness, and not looking after the poor.

Lot’s Daughters

Lot and his daughters are too frightened to go and look for another city, so they hide out in a cave. Apparently the daughters are convinced that there are no other men left in the world, and so they conspire to get their father drunk so he will have sex with them and get them pregnant, and as a result they conceive children Moab and Ben-ammi who become the forefathers of the nations of the Moabites and Ammon.

I always wonder about this story, and the implication that Lot was completely innocent in this incestuous encounter. It seems unlikely.

Abraham and Abimelech

Here we have the second of the three sister-wife narratives, where Abraham tries to pass Sarah off as his sister and she is taken into the harem of Abimelech, Abimelech is given dreams by God warning him not to touch her, and Sarah is returned to Abraham along with gifts of sheep, oxen, ‘menservants’ and ‘womenservants’.

The Birth of Isaac

So miraculously, Sarah conceives when she is 90 and Abraham is 100, and Isaac (meaning laughter) is born. On the seventh day he is circumcised according to the Covenant.

Hagar and Ishmael sent away

Sarah sees Ishmael ‘mocking’, and tells Abraham to “Cast out this bondwoman and her son” which he does very reluctantly. God confirms to Abraham that he should listen to Sarah in this, promising that he will take care of Hagar and make her descendants into a nation for his sake.

Covenant at Beer Sheba

Abimelech approaches Abraham to make an agreement to treat each other kindly, and Abraham brings up the fact that one of Abimelech’s servants has taken a well from Abraham. The covenant they make is at Beer-Sheva which means ‘the well of seven’, or the ‘well of oaths’. The text mentions that Abraham calls on “the LORD, the Everlasting God”, YHWH (Jehovah) El Olam.

Sacrifice of Isaac

Here we come to the section of the parsha which makes this one of the most important readings of the Torah cycle – the ‘binding of Isaac’, or the ‘Akedah’.

God tests Abraham’s faith and obedience by asking him to take Isaac, his long-awaited son, and sacrifice him. He obviously does not tell Isaac of the plan, as Isaac asks where the lamb is for the burnt offering, and Abraham answers “God will provide himself a lamb for the burnt offering.”

Just as Abraham is about to go through with the sacrifice, God intervenes and tells him not to, and does indeed provide a ram for the sacrifice.

Animal sacrifice is so far removed from our society, it is very difficult to understand why God would desire or demand this at all, and the fact that Abraham is willing seems really off to our modern thinking. It seems to make him more of a monster than a righteous man. But we learn from this that God does not ever desire human sacrifice, and later he tells us that he does not desire sacrifice at all, but he does value obedience.

In Christian thought as well, of course, Isaac here is considered to be a ‘type’ of Christ, that is a picture or a foreshadowing of Christ – an innocent sacrifice who does not deserve to die.

And so God confirms his covenant with Abraham, reminds him of all his previous promises, and promises more blessings.

The portion ends with the list of Abraham’s brother Nahor’s descendants.

Like this:

The festival of ‘Christ the King’ was last week, the last Sunday of the liturgical year so, like Simchat Torah, the church year ends on a joyous note, looking forward to a time when the Kingdom will be fully realised, where there will finally be peace and justice, “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” The feast of Christ the King encourages Christians to live under the kingship of Christ in our lives now.

“If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God.”

Being relatively new to the liturgical church, I had assumed that the Feast of ‘Christ the King’ was an ancient tradition but in fact it is less than 100 years old, and is not celebrated widely by denominations other than Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican. It was only instituted (by Pope Pius XI) in 1925 and only set as the last Sunday before Advent as recently as 1970, and was conceived specifically to address encroaching secularism.

Nevertheless it seems to me to be a very nice way to end the liturgical year.

“Eternal Father, whose son Jesus Christ ascended to the throne of heaven that he might rule over all things as lord and king, keep the Church in the unity of the Spirit and in the bond of peace, and bring the whole created order to worship at his feet; who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.”